The Princess’ Shadow Guard – Chapter 38
by Little PandaOf Course, to Kill You (Berserk)
Murong Yan sat by the fire, her face filled with disgust as she watched the several bandits on horseback, forcefully enduring the strange, aching pain in her head.
The man in the lead leaped off his horse. Beneath his magnificent cloak, his clothes were filthy, and his beard, which looked like it hadn’t been groomed in a long time, grew in a wild, dark bush across his cheeks.
When he saw Murong Yan, who was all alone, his eyes lit up as if he had found some treasure, and he roared in a coarse voice, “Looks like This Old Man1 is really in luck! A few days ago, Old Heaven let me run into a good merchant caravan, and today Old Heaven has bestowed a wife upon This Old Man!”
The other men dismounted one by one, each one behaving more crudely than a common ruffian.
Murong Yan, pressing a hand to her forehead, was about to speak when a tickle flared in her throat. Even though she turned her head and covered her mouth, she still couldn’t stop coughing.
In the ears of the crude men, the woman’s suppressed, muffled sounds were like a delicate moan, making them even more excited.
A man with a braided ponytail jeered loudly, “Hahaha, Chief! Such a little beauty, let me have a turn with her later.”
“Shan Meng! How could a delicate woman like this be for you? If you break her while playing, where would This Old Man have to go to find another?”
The man called Chief grinned at the weakened woman before him, revealing rotten, yellow teeth. He spoke in a lewd tone, “Little beauty, if you submit to me, you’ll be the wife of a bandit chief. This Old Man won’t treat you poorly.”
Murong Yan only felt her stomach churn with a nauseating urge to vomit. She fought it down and spoke in a weak voice, “You had all best leave immediately, before This Palace’s people return.”
The men roared with laughter, the sabers at their waists clanking noisily.
The braided man named Shan Meng chuckled to his companions, “This little beauty calls herself ‘This Palace’! Could it be she really thinks she’s a princess?”
Looking at the woman’s plain clothes and the dilapidated carriage behind her, he refused to believe it.
The man who was their leader seemed to have lost his patience and moved forward, intending to tear at the woman’s clothes.
An unnatural flush colored Murong Yan’s face, but her eyes held no fear, only a stern command.
“Stand down.”
She lifted her lowered eyelids. Though she was sitting on a wooden stool, she seemed as if she were on a high platform, looking down upon them all.
Her straight back and sharp tone made the man pause, stunned. He seemed genuinely on the verge of being convinced by her majestic aura, and he suddenly hesitated.
“Hah! Chief, don’t tell me you can’t get it up anymore!”
Seeing their leader hesitate, the bandits behind him began to clamor, “If you can’t do it, let us have a go!”
His pride stung, the man no longer hesitated. He strode forward and pushed the delicate woman to the ground. He lifted her skirt, only to see the prosthetic limb on her right leg gleaming with a cold, unnatural luster.
“Aiyo! She’s a cripple?” The man with the lecherous gaze sneered.
“You’re not even a whole person, so what are you acting all high and mighty for!”
Noticing a strip of red cloth revealed beneath the woman’s collar, the man lewdly licked his lips and began to lower his head.
Unexpectedly, in the next second, his expression froze. He shot to his feet, clutching his own neck and hissing, “Air… air… I can’t breathe!”
White foam gradually frothed from his mouth.
The surrounding bandits watched their dying leader in terror. They rushed forward, using their knives to slash open his clothes in an attempt to help him breathe better, but it was useless. They could only watch helplessly as their chief took a few more gasps and then breathed his last.
Struggling to sit up, Murong Yan’s hair, which had fallen to the ground, was slightly disheveled. In her hand, she toyed with a small wooden box.
Even though her body trembled slightly, she merely watched everything with indifference, no matter how the group of men before her cried to heaven and grabbed the earth2.
Commandery Princess Chongwen, Murong Yan, was from beginning to end never fish meat on a chopping block for others to carve, even with a broken leg.
The man named Shan Meng was the first to turn back. His face was savage and his eyes were bloodshot as he stared at the person sitting on the ground and roared, “You witch, what did you do to the Chief!”
Without waiting for the woman to answer, Shan Meng reached out to grab her slender neck. “You…”
His words were cut short before he could finish.
Dong!
A heavy sound.
A wind colder than snow swept past. Shan Meng watched as beads of blood seeped from his skin.
In the next second, right before his eyes, his wrist separated from his forearm and then fell to the ground.
A sharp dagger was deeply embedded in a tree trunk, only its hilt trembling slightly.
“What… do you think you’re doing?”
A murderous aura surged forth like a tidal wave.
The figure of a woman in a black robe appeared in the distance. Her jaw was dotted with dark red blood, the white shirt on her chest was stained with a large patch of blood, and in her arms, she cradled a tiger cub.
Seeing the woman on the ground with her collar open, surrounded by bandits, her pupils abruptly constricted.
In a single breath, ignoring Shan Meng who was clutching his arm and screaming, she flashed to Murong Yan’s side.
The rage that erupted from the bottom of her heart made Ming Qin’s mind go completely blank. She handed the little tiger cub to Murong Yan, then took off her outer robe and gently wrapped it around the woman’s exposed skin.
Turning to face the crowd, her pupils dilated like a panther about to hunt. She shot out a hand, grabbed Shan Meng’s braid to pull him forward, and then seized his jaw.
Ming Qin’s face was expressionless. She just stared wide-eyed at the terrified Shan Meng before her, as if trying to see clearly who would dare to act so wantonly toward Murong Yan.
“You, you, you… what do you want?”
His neck felt as if it were being constricted by a giant python. Shan Meng’s body trembled, and he struggled to breathe, trying to force more air into his lungs. His flushed face gradually turned blue.
“Do what?”
Ming Qin tilted her head slightly, seeming somewhat puzzled as to why the man would ask such a foolish question.
The sound of the man’s bones cracking under the pressure of her tightening fingers could be heard. She replied in a toneless voice, “Of course, to kill you.”
As she finished speaking, she released her grip and punched the man in the face. The sound of tooth roots breaking and cheekbones shattering, paired with Shan Meng’s wails, made the remaining bandits’ hair stand on end and their bones chill3. They all drew the machetes from their waists.
Ming Qin turned sideways, her long black hair fluttering in the cold wind. Her eyes were bloodshot as she single-handedly dragged the already unconscious Shan Meng. The bloodstains on her body were rendered even more vivid against the falling snow, making her entire being look like an Asura4 that had crawled out of hell.
She raised her hand and tossed the man, who was twice her size, into the air. As he fell, she lifted her foot and kicked viciously between his legs. Under the heavy blow, several bones broke with a CRACK, and the man’s body flew like a broken rag doll toward the other bandits.
Just as the group was scrambling to catch the flying Shan Meng, Ming Qin bent her knees, drew her sword, and in the next instant, executed several sword flourishes, severing the hands that the four or five men in front of her had just used to draw their blades.
Wails of agony rose and fell, but Ming Qin showed no mercy.
In fact, the sounds the men made only made her more frenzied.
The shadow guard raised her hand, sword tip pointing up, and pierced the man closest to her from his chin to the crown of his head, giving him no chance to beg for mercy. With a flick of Ming Qin’s wrist, the man lost half his face, and the rest of his body fell down stiffly.
Seeing that their opponent, though just a single woman, possessed such terrifying martial prowess, the remaining men lost all will to fight. They turned one after another to flee.
Ming Qin gave them no chance to mount their horses. Without hesitation, she swung her sword at two of the men with their backs to her, cutting them in half at the waist. Their entrails spilled all over the ground, yet she remained unmoved.
Then, she threw the longsword in her hand like a catapult stone, pinning another man who was trying to mount his horse to a tree trunk.
The winter trees were bare. Only the head, impaled by the sword, stared with wide-open, lifeless eyes, as blood gushed from the forehead like a spring, nourishing the earth below.
The last man, who had fallen to the ground, trembled in fear as he watched the woman walk toward him. “Stop! Don’t… come over… spare me!”
Snot and tears streamed down the bandit’s face, all of his initial arrogance gone.
“Just now… when Yanyan told you to stop, did you listen to her?”
Ming Qin murmured in a low voice, her eyes deep and cold. Before the man could react, she smashed her fist into his face.
Heavily.
Again and again.
The heavy thuds of the blows, mixed with the man’s screams, were exceptionally clear in the quiet forest.
Finally, even the heart-wrenching screams faded away, but the fists raining down like hailstones did not stop.
Blood and bits of flesh splattered, but Ming Qin was indifferent. Only her lowered eyes roiled with a sinister darkness she had never shown before, her entire body enveloped in a bloodthirsty aura.
Her mind was still a blank slate, even more chaotic than before. Besides the blood-red on her fists, it was as if she could see nothing else.
“Ah Qin.”
“Ah Qin.”
A voice as clear as a spring stream entered her ears. The familiar call stopped the out-of-control fist in mid-air.
Lifting her head, Ming Qin looked at the woman in the distance, who was holding the little tiger and draped in her own outer robe. Her rationality not yet returned, she just stared blankly.
“Ah Qin, come.” Murong Yan, sitting on the ground, raised an arm. Her gaze was gentle, completely unconcerned by the person’s ferocious murderous aura and body drenched in blood.
Her scattered consciousness gathered.
The sound of an iron lock clanking echoed in the silent forest.
The beast returned to its cage.
Stepping over the ground covered in minced flesh and severed limbs, Ming Qin rose and walked to Murong Yan. She knelt down obediently, allowing the woman to fasten the chain around her neck. Her vicious gaze softened, and her mind gradually cleared.
“…I’m sorry.”
The shadow guard who had been so savage just moments ago now had a whimpering tone in her voice. She hung her head like a hound that had done wrong, awaiting her master’s reprimand.
“I’m sorry, I scared you.”
“You don’t need to apologize to me. I knew Ah Qin would come,” Murong Yan said with conviction, her tone comforting. Then she smiled. “Why did Ah Qin bring back a little furball?”
“He lost his mother. He wouldn’t have survived long alone in the forest.” Ming Qin wiped her blood-covered hands, then straightened the woman’s collar and tied her sash, speaking as she did so. “I remembered I promised to give you a tiger to play with, so I brought it back.”
Seeing Ming Qin’s earnest expression, Murong Yan couldn’t help but want to laugh, but she involuntarily let out a dry cough.
This prompted the shadow guard to quickly help her into the carriage, tossing the fluffy little ball from the ground inside as well. She then changed out of her filthy clothes outside the carriage before driving away.
The snow fell heavier and heavier.
Flake after flake piled up into a vast white landscape, concealing the scent of blood in the air and the carnage on the ground.
LP: Re-translated on July 25, 2025
Footnotes
- 老子 | lǎozi | An arrogant and vulgar way of referring to oneself, literally “old father.” It implies superiority and is used to project a domineering and coarse personality.
- 呼天搶地 | hū tiān qiǎng dì | A Chinese idiom that literally means “to cry out to heaven and clutch the earth.” It describes a state of extreme grief, despair, or anguish, wailing and lamenting in a dramatic and inconsolable manner.
- 毛骨悚然 | máo gǔ sǒng rán | A Chinese idiom that literally means “hairs stand up and bones feel a chill.” It is used to describe a feeling of extreme terror or horror.
- 修羅 | xiūluó | In Buddhist and Hindu mythology, an Asura is a demigod or titan, often depicted as a powerful, warlike being driven by passion and wrath. In this context, it describes someone who appears terrifying, merciless, and demonic, as if a warrior from hell.
That was brutal, but serves them right
Thanks for the chapter!
Damn, one hand? She’s so strong and thank you for the chapter!
That was brutal, but serves them right
Thanks for the chapter!
Damn, one hand? She’s so strong and thank you for the chapter!
her fighting scene was epic! well translated!
her fighting scene was epic! well translated!